The Holy Rosary, from the Writings of the Fathers of the Church

By Fr. Mark Higgins and The Fathers of the Church

This collection of rosary meditations taken from the writings of the Fathers of the Church allows the reader, for the first time, to bring the insights of Sacred Tradition into the daily recitation of the Holy Rosary. We know well, as true sons and daughters of Holy Mother Church, that the Truths of the C

• Language: English
• Publisher: Catholic Way Publishing
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781783795161

Fr. Mark Higgins

Fr Mark Higgins, ordained in 2015, is a priest of the Archdiocese of Southwark, England. He is also the editor of The Holy Rosary through the Visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, The Holy Rosary through the Writings of the Fathers of the Church, The Holy Rosary through the Visions of Saint Bridget of Sweden and The Holy Rosary through the Writings of Saint Alphonsus all published by Catholic Way Publishing.

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Introduction

W

hen our divine lord

and Saviour Jesus Christ taught His saving Gospel to humanity during those precious years of His earthly ministry He taught and instructed the Blessed Apostles in far more truths than those contained in Sacred Scripture. How beautiful it is for a true son of the Catholic Church to hear those words, ‘Sacred Tradition’, what joy overflows from the heart of a true follower of Christ to know that the Word of God is contained not solely in Scripture, far from it, but overflows into Sacred Tradition. It is well known to all true Christians that Sacred Scripture refers to the Seventy Three books that are contained in the Holy Bible, books which are truly to be held as ‘God breathed’ and free from error. What however is Sacred Tradition? Sacred Tradition refers to all that was seen and heard by Our Divine Lord’s audience and which was transmitted onwards through means other than through the inspired texts.

Sacred Tradition is not then found in its entirety in one concrete and identifiable location, but how could it be? It is far too immense to be contained in all the books in all the libraries of the world. The Church has infallibly identified for her children a number of monuments or mirrors of this Sacred Tradition, sources in which we do, with a certain degree of intensity, find the transmission of the saving revelation of Christ, completing that which is lacking in Sacred Scripture alone. Above all these monuments are the Councils and Creeds of the Early Church, her traditional liturgies and the writings of the Early Church Fathers.

When we pray the rosary, as Our Lady has explicitly requested that we do every day, we do well to meditate upon the actual scenes of the mysteries, to ponder those scenes and then to imitate the virtues exemplified therein. Many people will do this through reading passages of Scripture or indeed the writings of a saint, such as that of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, the privileged seer of the events of salvation history.

In this short work I present before you another angle that you may wish to take, to pray the rosary through the lens of Sacred Tradition, to absorb the wisdom and insight from the Early Church, from the Fathers, from the liturgical texts and from other ancient writers who stood in such proximity to the very mouth of Christ. Primarily the rosary meditations are drawn, as the title of the book suggests, from the writings of the Fathers of the Church, men such as St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, St. Ephrem, St. Irenaeus, St. Bede and St. Bernard. I have, however, at times used the texts of other men, or of anonymous authors. My criteria in selecting these was always twofold, first, that they conform to teaching of the Catholic Church or secondly, where no definitive teaching has been established, that they conform to either the writings of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich or ‘The Life of the Virgin Mary’ by St. Maximus the Confessor’, both of which fill in many hidden details of the Life of Our Saviour.

The usage of material from so called ‘Apocryphal Gospels’ is thus explained, I have used them only when they accord with what we know to be true from reputable sources and where I have truly discerned that the information that they are conveying is worthy and profitable for meditation.

Indeed, it seems highly unfortunate that many early church texts have received this negative title when a large number of them, and ones used in this book, far from being Gnostic mythologies, were actually written by pious Catholic believers who intended to faithfully pass on something which they had heard, a tradition handed down to them concerning the lives of Our Blessed Lord and His Holy Mother.

In the case of Sacred Scripture every word is inspired, that is what marks it out uniquely from all other texts. The documents which contain elements of Sacred Tradition are not all so safeguarded, indeed, only those approved by the Magisterium in a specific manner such as the Nicene Creed can make an analogous claim of inerrancy. The Fathers of the Church, and more so the early writers who are not canonised, often share pieces of the Sacred Tradition but they will always do so with a potential admixture of error for they were writing as men without the guarantee of a continual safeguarding from error by the workings of the Holy Spirit. And so it must be said, some ideas or events proposed by the Fathers and early writers in the course of these meditations may or may not have taken place, there is an element of mystery, there is room for us all to ponder what they convey to us. But once again, let me reiterate, I have carefully selected passages which are in full accord with the Magisterium, and in areas that seemed to me novel or unusual I ensured that they conformed with either the revelations given to Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich or the Life of the Virgin by Saint Maximus the Confessor before including them. A concrete case of this would be the meditation for the tenth bead of the Nativity, here I chose to convey an unusual tradition in one of the early writings, and yet it is a tradition that the privileged seer, Blessed Anne also received, and received independently of the text quoted which was hardly translated into any vernacular until the nineteenth century.

As with The Holy Rosary through the visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, a previous work of mine published by Catholic Way Publishing, I have included ‘optional’ mysteries for the Holy Rosary that readers may find useful. I have included these after the official fifteen mysteries, and these include the mysteries proposed by Pope John Paul II, ‘The Mysteries of Light’, and also a further set, ‘The Hopeful Mysteries’, based on the suggestion of Servant of God Frank Duff and a ‘revelation’ to someone close to the author.

As I close this introduction I close with a petition for prayer. Indeed, at this time in the history of the Church, I feel impelled to beg you all, in particular, to pray for the priests of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Without priests, most certainly, we would all be damned, and yet those priests themselves, so many of them, tip toe along the edges of the very precipice of hell from which they would save us.

As you pray these beads then, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, beg Our Lady’s intercession for the clergy; for the bishops, the priests, the deacons, and indeed, most especially, for the Holy Father himself, which, at the time that this book was published was Pope Francis. Undoubtedly, at this time it is very manifest that evil has entered the Church. Surely this diabolic infiltration commenced with Judas, and it has continued ever since, but today it seems to have reached proportions perhaps only equivalent to the days of the Early Fathers, when wicked men like Arius, Nestorius and Valentinus sowed their diabolical doctrines and practices in the Christ’s field, which is the Catholic Church. Perhaps, for this reason, the words of the Holy Fathers, which are shared in this simple book, will effect even more impact within our souls, for they wrote and prayed in times very much like ours, when many bishops had succumb to error, and the Lord Himself seemed to be silent, sleeping below deck, while the storm raged on above.

In the end, of course, her Immaculate Heart will triumph, Russia will be converted, and a period of peace will be given to the world. The Evil One has his hour, but God has His eternity. Until then, let us pray for priests, for most certainly, on the holiness of priests is balanced all things, and without this, only chastisement will befall us.

Yours, in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Refuge of Sinners,

father mark higgins

The Feast of Saint Raphael the Archangel, 2020

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note on praying the rosary using this book

If you are praying the rosary alone, it is suggested that you read the initial text before commencing the Our Father, afterwards the ten paragraphs of additional meditation could either be read before or during each Hail Mary. In a group setting a leader is required to read aloud each paragraph and commence each Hail Mary. The experience of the editor is that, in private use, with a prayerful silent reading of each passage, to say five mysteries will take at least 30 minutes and for some people closer to 45. If you feel the movements of grace pulling you into a simpler contemplation of a mystery as you read a paragraph, do not resist the Holy Spirit, and allow yourself to be at rest in the affect (the response of the heart) which Almighty God is stirring from within your soul.

In addition to the Fifteen Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, meditations are also included for those who wish to consider the mysteries proposed by Pope John Paul II, the Mysteries of Light, and, additionally a further set of mysteries prepared by the author, the Hopeful Mysteries. These further mysteries allow the reader to contemplate additional material offered to us by our visionary and cover events prior to the Joyful Mysteries, these are given as — The Creation of all things in Christ, the Promise of the Redeemer and Co-Redemptrix, the Birth of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Presentation of Mary as a girl in the Temple, and the Chaste Espousals of Mary and Joseph.

It is customary to commence the Holy Rosary with the Sign of the Cross, the Apostles Creed, and then, for the intentions of the Holy Father, an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be. After completing five mysteries we then say some concluding prayers centred around the Hail Holy Queen, these are contained at the end of this short work.

note on source material

Almost the entirety of this work is drawn from the collections of the Fathers of the Church by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, this includes those sources labelled apocryphal. Their work is now in the public domain and has been used throughout this work. I have, at times, edited the material given. Universally I have made the language consistent with modern English both in grammar and spelling. Sometimes for sake of brevity or comprehensibility I have removed sentences or words from a given paragraph. In a few occasions I have made minor alterations to structure, or added a few words of context to, again, improve the clarity of a given passage or to ensure that some degree of flow is maintained between the ten beads of each mystery. For that reason I do not recommend using this book as a reference book for scholarly work on the Fathers of the Church, there are other books for that purpose, the purpose of this work is devotional rather than academic.

Additional Public Domain works have also been used in a small minority of instances, these include the translations of the ancient hymns of Byzantine and Syriac traditions.

One published work has been used. As you will see, I have used ten short quotes from the The Life of the Virgin by St. Maximus the Confessor, Translated by Stephen Shoemaker and published by Yale University Press. This work is an excellent and unparalleled account of the Life of the Virgin Mary, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to you as a companion to the writings of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich. All the short quotes from this work are referenced and placed in quotation marks to emphasise that I am quoting from a published source and without amending the quotation.

All images used in this book are works in the Public Domain available through Wikimedia Commons.

The Joyful Mysteries

the first joyful mystery

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The Annunciation

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the fruit of this mystery

Docility and obedience to the inspirations of the Guardian Angel

L

et us learn from

this Virgin how to bear ourselves, let us learn by her devout utterance, above all, let us learn by this holy mystery to be timid, to avoid any unnecessary company, and to shrink from human praise. Let all women learn from the example of modesty set here before us. The Virgin Mary, upon whom the stare of men had never been fixed was alone in her chamber, and was found only by an Angel. There was neither companion nor witness there, that what passed might not be debased in gossip, and the Angel saluted her. The message of God to the Virgin was a mystery so great that it cannot be uttered by the mouth of man, but by an Angel. For the first time on earth the words are spoken, The Holy Spirit shall come upon you. The holy maiden hears and believes. Finally she replies, Behold the handmaiden of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word. Here is an example of lowliness, here is a pattern of true devotion. At the very moment she